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Making good hygiene normal

We're spreading the word about good hygiene in communities like Crizonia and Dircia's in Timor-Leste.

WaterAid/Tom Greenwood

Would you be able to stay clean and healthy if you didn’t have clean water and a decent toilet? What if no-one had explained to you the importance of washing your hands with soap after going to the toilet and before eating?

Around the world, poor hygiene is making children sick, putting mothers and babies at risk in hospitals, and stopping young women staying safe and well on their period. This shouldn’t be normal.

Promoting hygienic behaviour is difficult because it involves changing habits and challenging traditional norms. But when you don’t have enough water to drink and cook with, let alone use for washing, you are forced to make a choice between what is essential and what is not. So hygiene promotion has to go hand in hand with access to safe water and toilets.

Take handwashing, for example. Just washing our hands with soap can cut cases of diarrhoea almost in half, saving hundreds of lives every single day. And it can have a positive effect on children’s education too.

What we do

WaterAid promotes hygiene in all of the countries where we work. The techniques vary from place to place but the principles are the same – we work closely with communities because they will find the best solutions and the best ways to promote lasting change.

There are endless possibilities for innovation.

WaterAid/ Mani KarmacharyaVaccines aren't enough to keep children healthy. That's why we incorporate hygiene classes into immunisation programmes in Nepal, so mothers learn how to protect infants from preventable diseases.

WaterAid/Abir AbdullahDiarrhoeal diseases spread fast in schools, but explaining how they travel can be tricky. In Bangladesh, our blue hand game helps students understand the importance of handwashing.

WaterAid/Poulomi BasuPeriods were a taboo subject in Duggor, India, but our menstrual hygiene education groups not only helped local girls take control of their menstrual health, they also encouraged men to support them.

WaterAid/Marco BettiIn Antenitibe, Madagascar, children watch our hygiene education show with six-foot puppets – a vital first step in developing good hygiene practices in time for new taps and toilets being installed.

WaterAid/GMB Akash/PanosWorking with the tea-picking community in Sylhet, Bangladesh, we've been spreading the word about good hygiene through posters, plays, music and songs to show the benefits of staying healthy.

WaterAid/Marco BettiIn Tanzania, Amina and Isaya play snakes and ladders – with a difference. Their board game teaches them the dangers of going to the toilet in the bush and eating fruit without washing it first.

Spreading the word

"Menstruation is good. And it is normal."

Dennis, 14, Uganda

Attitudes towards hygiene and periods are changing, thanks in part to funding water, sanitation and hygiene clubs like the one at St Mary’s School in Uganda.

Girls and boys learn practical skills – such as how to make reusable sanitary towels – as well as basic good hygiene behaviour like handwashing. They then go out into the community and teach their friends and family what they have learnt, helping to change attitudes and establish good hygiene for generations to come.

Thank you, Dr Semmelweis

160 years ago, women were terrified of giving birth at Vienna’s General Hospital – until one man looked into the power of handwashing. Tragically, his life-saving findings proved to be ahead of their time.